Indulgence Cookbook and Elixirs Libations Guide

  Indulgence in Food, by Teressa Woodward 

 
 While growing up in a small town in Southern Oklahoma around the 1960’s and 70’s, my Mother didn’t often cook. Instead, our family dinner destination was Opal’s Café. Being a picky eater, I always ate the same thing. My nightly choice was hamburger with meat, bun and mustard only & French fries . When my perfectionist mother would venture into our home kitchen, I was never allowed to help for fear of making a mess. Her Mother, on the other hand, my Nanny, who lived across the street from our house, loved to show and have me assist with all of her generation’s down-home cooking traditions. She taught me how to make my family favorites, Chicken Fried Steak, Salmon Croquettes and Buttermilk Pie. Daddy adored my Beef Lasagna and requested it regularly. It was the mid 1980’s before I ever began to venture out into the real world of food variety with some remarkable exposure to fine dining, the likes of which most food fans could only dream. My husband worked in several up-scale restaurants and hotels by trade and would bring home the chef’s latest creations to expand my horizons. I was generously invited to meet and freely ask any food questions with the chefs and my collection of menus, notes taken and food recipe knowledge grew rapidly. As my recipe collection grew, so did my love for being able to make their delicacies at home, dazzling friends and family.
 

Elixirs Wine, Spirit and Beer Question & Answer Guide by James Woodward

I began my hospitality career at 21 years old working as a waiter in a fine dining restaurant. It was there that I experienced my first wine training seminar and realized that most males knew little about gourmet cooking and nothing about wine, two things of great interest to most females. I was young and single and found this knowledge a huge advantage in recruiting romance. I was later promoted to Bar Manager and ventured into nightclub management. This eventually led me to Food & Beverage positions at prominent hotels. From there, back to various restaurant management and on to Wine Department Manager at Byron’s, the largest store in Oklahoma City. Wine Sales Rep at Hirst Imports followed and in 1994, my wife and I opened a specialty wine retail store, Woodward’s Wines & Elixirs, lasting 10 years. I then created Woodward’s Wines UNcommon, a Wine Distribution Company that ultimately enabled me to reach the top level of expertise. Having been a wine, spirits and beer educator for over 30 years, I’ve had the opportunity to wade through the vast subject information from books, videos and other teachers. The result is the creation of my self-designed question and answer format to understanding wine and alcoholic beverages. Its intention is to provide the simplest facts enabling enjoyment through knowledge. It can make you an overnight expert to have fun impressing your friends when showing off at parties. There is obviously a multitude of more information way beyond what I provide, by experts much more knowledgeable than I, but you get the “fruits” of my 30-year career labor of studying wine, traveling through wine countries, visiting with winemakers, designing wine lists, training restaurant and wine store employees, owning a retail wine store, owning a wine distribution company and drinking a hell of a lot of the stuff. James Woodward